Kimonos and Celtic knots... oh yea!

OK so that was mean! I but I was pretty tired last night. So tired in fact that my poor family had to fend for them selves for dinner!
I am very happy with how the Kimono quilt turned out though and it was well worth the two days it took to finish it.
I originally planned on doing an Asian panto on the quilt to get it done quick and easy. Well about 3 feet into the first row of the panto I decided I hated it! So I ripped it out and went with plan B... OK so I didn't really have a plan B.. I had to make one up on the spot!

This is what I ended up with....

I started by outlining each Kimono, then did a tiny stipple in that little 1/2" space by the colar. Then I worked my way down and around the kimono to fill in all of the black with a stipple. The sashing needed something so I went with a simple ribbon.. and viola there you have it. The fun part.. I quilted the entire thing in GOLD! So sadly you can see my wobble and bobbles. But let me say, doing a ribbon on 1" sashing is kind of a pain in the BUTT!

Working on the last two rows of the quilt, each block took about 7 minutes to do... there were 56 blocks... so roughly 6 1/2 hours just for the blocks.. not to awe fully bad!

The entire quilt done! Now I just need to trim and bind it!

And one more photo, you can see how the quilting comes together. In the end I think I made the right decision. I would not have been happy with the panto. I also love that I did not put any quilting in the Kimonos... as you can see blow, it makes the back a lot of fun too!
OK, so not the best picture of the back, but you get the idea!

Sadly, now I have an entire weekends worth of chores and emails to catch up on. Plus I need to start work on Stuarts newest quilt... can you say emerald green and Celtic knots... here is a sneak peek...
Now imagine that... 4 feet across... oh yea this is going to be a fun one!

Happy quilting to all!
Ginny

Sneek Peak...

So, I busted butt this weekend! I spent two whole days working on the Kimono quilt...Here is a sneak peak... I will post the rest of the pictures tomorrow....Yep, I'm evil like that! That's all you get for today!
Stay tuned for the rest of the quilting story!
Happy quilting,
Ginny

February = Crazy!

If I had to describe the month of February in one word it would be "Crazy" and not just this year but every year February ends up being one of my busiest months. Partly because it is my daughters birthday month, the high maintenance daughter, not the easy one! This year was actually the most mellow birthday she has ever had. Her friends threw her a party at their house, she was gone for almost 24 hours, then when she came home for birthday dinner she got called into work. Well in the hurry to get her fed before she flew out the door... Dad incinerated her dinner... UGG well Happy Birthday anyhow kiddo!

This month has also been crazy busy with longarm classes, Oh and time spent at the shop doing my own quilts. So far I have been there every weekend except last weekend as my class was canceled due to the student getting sick!

This month is the big push to get all of the last minute quilting done for all of the quilt show entries, I have finished the yellow and purple pansy quilt and think it turned out lovely...

The colors didn't turn out very well the quilt is really a bright yellow and purple. I also had a heck of a time getting a good photo of the quilting... bu there it is...

I played around and did a circle feather in each circle (this was a first for me) and then I filled the rest with fern feathers... Love those... and actually you can see them even better on the back than you can on the front.
I do love my Minkee backings.. they are so soft and show the quilting so very well!


I also made another last minute quilt... this was the BOM this month at our local Craft Warehouse...
I have over the years collected a LOT of different oriental prints, I can't help myself I LOVE them, well I also fell in love with this block. It is a total PITA to piece but the end result is well worth it. I decided to use a different print for each kimono... there are 56 block is this quilt... I did NOT use all of my Asian prints... I found about 10 more after I was finished with the quilt...

As I work on my quilts I show them to my Daycare kids.. one of my oldest kiddos ask me is she could make a block to turn in next Quilt Party, I said sure... here she is working on her block. I did all of the cutting, she did all of the stitching, together we pressed. She was a good student and did an excellent job. Sounds like she is going to start coming to Q.P. with me.
Here is Miss B with her finished block!

And a close up of her finished block.
Yes a crazy busy month! I have finally gotten around to binding Stuarts quilt Magic Hour... Now in my house of 5 cats you can NEVER make a quilt with out help.. here is Groucho AKA Cho "helping" me bind the quilt. He was a BIG help let me tell you. After much pulling, pushing and prodding I got the quilt done and he had an excellent nap!

One of my favorite crazy busy bits this month... Morgen, had her first "date" she ask a friend who happens to be a boy to the Sadie Hopkins dance (do we know why it is called Sadie Hopkins?) They met up there with a group of friends, danced and had a blast. She was all dressed up and ready to go. She reports that it was the most fun at a school dance that she has ever had. I guess so, her legs were sore for 3 days after wards!

Well that is my Crazy month in a nutshell, and we still have three days left!
I will post pictures of the Kimono quilt when I am finished with it. I think I may give that one to Morgen as a surprise... Shh don't tell her!
Happy quilting,
Ginny

The Leap!

Around this time last year I started working on a quilt for my darling husband, that quilt turned into Magic Hour. Well, this quilt is not exactly small, it measures 102" x 102" and was WAY to big for my quilt frame, As a matter of fact it maxed out the frame at the shop too!

Now, fast forward to last month, I finally got around to putting the binding on Stuart's quilt, washed it and put in on our king size bed, it looks lovely btw.. But there is only about 4 inches of over hand on the sides. After putting the quilt on Stuart turns to me and says, "you need to make a bigger quilt so it hangs down the sides more" I explained that I can't make a bigger quilt as I don't have access to a frame large enough to quilt one. Now we have been talking for a while about my getting a larger frame just for this reason. So he then says to me... Go ahead and order the 12' frame you have been wanting!!!

Just that simple! I have wanted to so badly and had even talked to Sue to see if they could build me a frame that size (on their website they offer a 10' frame as their king size) But I could not order one with out Stuart agreeing as it is a pretty big money outlay. Well, I waited a day and then ask him if he was sure I could order the frame, I told him exactly how much it would be and he says "Happy Valentines Day" (this is over a dinner at our favorite Chinese place too)

So I came home and called Sue, 45 minutes later after a rather long extensive conversation with Art (did I mention this is a custom job) my frame is ordered and will *hopefully* be delivered in mid march! Just in time for my birthday!

Oh and Stuart has already outlined the next quilt he wants... emerald green with a 4' Celtic knot in the center... and being the good wife...I ordered the fabric and drew up and printed the design yesterday... Stay tuned!

Happy quilting,
Ginny

I jumped!

I took the leap, I made the jump! I will tell you more tomorrow!

Wendi Weekend!

Yippee my foot is better!!! For the last two and a half months I have been wearing this clunky old medical boot Uggg! I have had severe heel pain and was having problems putting weight on my left foot, yesterday I went to the podiatrist and he put a cortisone shot in that heal. Today I am back in my tenny runners and happy as can be!

Because of the heel pain quilting has been a chore, that's not so good. But I did have a fun weekend with my good friend Wendi, she has recently completed two stunning quilts and wanted to quilt them, so we rented the Jewel for a couple of days and to work we went. Now Wendi would be just delighted if I would quilt all of her quilts for her. I am NOT that nice LOL, I being the good friend that I am make her quilt them herself, I did help out a little on these two, the second quilt we split pretty evenly as it was a real arm buster! Here are Wendi's works of art.....This quilt is called Northern Ripples, Wendi won the blocks, we go to our local Craft Warehouse once a month for quilt party, they have a BOM and you bring it back and are entered in the block lotto, the winner gets all of the blocks. This as you can see was a fall BOM. Wendi played around with the layout and this is what she ended up with, I think it really sings. And since it looks like the ripples on a pond, we decided to do a water design. I found a panto called Drips, thought it would be perfect, quilted in a nice variegated brown... here are the close ups....

Now Wendi is the kind of quilter that does NOT want the quilting to show, I think we were successful, it does blend in nicely...

Here you can actually see the pattern.

She used a fuzzy backing (I am starting to wear off on her... Bwaa Haa Haa my evil plan is working) and you can REALLY see the patterning! LOVE IT.


This is the water color quilt she has been working on for several months, I think it is amazing! I love the diamond affect. This quilt was a total pain in the arm to quilt! For the design we let the fabric speak, there are lots of leaves and vegetation on the batiks so I found a lovely fern panto on the digitech website, originally we were going to make the panto HUGE so the quilting would not be very obvious, neither of us liked that one, so we used a smaller version of the same ferns, each fern leaf is about 3.5 inches tall, each row was about 6.5 inches tall. It took about 18 minutes per row... The arm busting part came from the up constant up and down up and down of the jagged fern leaves my shoulder was good for about 3 row, then Wendi would do 3, then I would do 3 and so on...We got it done, but would have to seriously think about doing the small version of the ferns again.... OUCH.... here is a close up of the ferns.....

Each spiky leaf is about an inch and half tall... I think this was one of our first rows, we were still pretty wobbly.
And the back, the backing is black with a dark blue bobbin, so hard to see but you get the idea.
I do think both quilts turned out well. I am hoping she will enter BOTH of them in the quilt show.

What do you think?

As always, thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world.
May all your stitches be even, and all your needles stay sharp!
Happy quilting,
Ginny

Rental Handouts...

Ok, this is just a quick post today. I have gotten several emails asking about the papers I hand out in my class. So I have decided to add them to my blog, they will be permanently at the bottom of the screen. I developed these as teaching tools, the content is entirely mine. Please feel free to use the instructions as you like. Make changes to reflect your personal information and what you will be teaching. PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR SELL my handouts! If you want to post these or share these please contact me first for permission. I will probably grant it, but it would be nice if you ask before you share! Or you can just direct others to this website.

You will find three different handouts, The first one is the one I email to my students, this is a general guide explaining what they will learn and what to bring, it also gives resources to purchase thread.

Secondly, is my quilting checklist. We follow this step by step in the class. It gets them going one step at a time.

the third one is how to prepare you quilt for longarm quilting.
This is valid for ANYONE who takes their quit to be longarmed, either by a professional or by yourself these guidelines don't change. There is also instruction on how to attache zippers for zippered leaders. And how to attach your boarder so they don't ruffle!

Oh and one more little thing, I have gotten complaints on my purple writing on the black background, I finally figured out how to change the text color, so lavender it is!

Happy quilting,
Ginny